Traction Control

About

RACELOGIC Traction Control (discontinued)

After nearly twenty years and with many thousands of units sold, we have regretfully taken the decision to discontinue our Traction Control system.

We will continue to support our first hand Traction customers for the lifetime of the product. If you have purchased the unit second or third hand, please use our online materials for help. You may be charged for personal support.

RACELOGIC Traction Control is an aftermarket system that does not only dramatically reduce the chances of an accident, but also positively enhances the performance of the vehicle.

In a rear wheel drive car you can use full throttle around a corner with greater confidence that the rear end isn't going to suddenly break away.

In a front wheel drive vehicle push-on understeer is cured, with the system setting the correct level of power to finely balance the vehicle.

In wet and slippery conditions the car accelerates as fast as grip allows without skidding all over the road.

It does not only positively enhance the performance of the vehicle, RACELOGIC Traction Control also dramatically reduces the chances of an accident. This is why companies like Gumpert and Koenigsegg choose to fit our system into their cars.

How it works

How it works

The system works by monitoring the speed of all four wheels using the ABS system or specially fitted sensors. When wheel spin is detected the engine power is reduced, by cutting a single injector pulse, until grip is resumed. This occurs in a thousandth of a second, and appears to the driver as a slight misfire with no loss in acceleration.

Maximum acceleration is achieved by limiting the slip between the tyre and the road. The point at which a tyre is just beginning to slip against the road gives the maximum coefficient of friction value.

From the graph above it can be seen that the maximum coefficient of friction (µ) occurs at a slip between tyre and road of 10% when dry, and around 5% when wet.

Many factors affect the ideal level of slip, wet / dry conditions, speed of the vehicle, lateral g-force (cornering), tyre compound, tyre pressures etc. Ideally the driver should be able to dial in a base level of slip that takes into account weather and tyres, and the system should adjust automatically for speed of the vehicle and lateral g-force.

When cornering, the system will reduce the amount of slip available, to prevent lateral slip from occurring, and vary this amount depending on the speed of the vehicle. At high speed, low grip situations, this slip should be around 1-2% to maintain forward momentum, and at low speed high grip situations, this can be much higher.

Cutting a single injector pulse

The idea of cutting fuel to an engine sets alarm bells ringing in engine builders, as they all know that running a lean combustion mode will elevate in-cylinder temperatures very rapidly. The denser the air/fuel charge, the more heat the lean burn can generate. Therefore it is vital that a fuel cut system will not cause a lean burn.

Prolonged fuel cut on one particular cylinder would cause scavenging of the petrol lining the inlet tracts, and when the next full fuel pulse arrived, it would be partially reduced in quantity by the re-wetting of these tracts. RACELOGIC Traction Control rotates cylinder cutting to prevent this situation from occurring.

Does it fit?

Does it fit?

RACELOGIC Traction Control is suitable for petrol-engined cars that have electronic fuel injection. The system is integrated with the car's injector signal wires – so the signals are always passing through the Traction ECU. A suitable RPM signal must also be connected.

However, RACELOGIC Traction Control is not compatible with the following:

Misfire detection: If your engine management acts upon detecting misfires by putting the vehicle into limp-home mode, or illuminating the check-engine dashboard lamp, RACELOGIC Traction Control cannot be used unless the misfire detection function is disabled. This can be done in some cases by ECU tuning specialists.

Pulse width modulation to control/limit the injector current.

Peak and hold injector drivers

Low impedance injectors with resistance lower than 4ohms

Peak and hold and pulse width modulated injector signals

Wet nitrous stream

Water & Ethanol injection

Active ABS sensors

Engine Configuration

RACELOGIC Traction Control is available either with six or eight injector interfaces. On an engine with four, five or six cylinders you would use a six injector interface system (with one or two inputs being redundant on an engine with five/four cylinders, respectively).

On a V8 it is advisable to use our eight injector interface system, especially if the vehicle has a very high power to weight ratio; it is entirely possible to use a six cylinder system on a V8 engine, by leaving two cylinders unaffected and altering the cut sequences accordingly. However, the disadvantages in doing this are that launch control and full throttle shift cannot be used, and the smoothness of operation isn't as great.

It is also possible to employ RACELOGIC Traction Control on a V10 or V12, again by leaving two or four cylinders unaffected. An eight cylinder unit being used on a V10 engine can be extremely effective due to the higher ratio of injector inputs, to the extent that both launch and full throttle shift can be used.

How to fit

How to fit

Consulting a professional

The fitting can be carried out by any competent auto-electrician or an electronically competent mechanic or garage. If the car doesn't have ABS then you will need to fit four wheel speed sensors to the vehicle, which involves fabricating brackets and adjusting the sensors.

Do it yourself

If you intend to install RACELOGIC Traction Control yourself, please follow the Fitting Instruction in this Traction Control Manual. This is a generic manual and as such does not contain vehicle-specific data. We would recommend consulting a competent auto electrician should you require precise information.

If you own one of the following cars, you may as well follow the links below. These are threads from owner's club forums and can provide useful guidelines, but please be aware that RACELOGIC accepts no responsibility for damage caused to owner's vehicles as a result of using this information.

A laptop computer is necessary in order to correctly configure the system. RACELOGIC has some vehicle pin-out data for some vehicles – please contact us to see if we have this for your car.

Fitting Wheel Speed Sensors

If your car is not equipped with passive ABS (typically fitted in models pre-2000) it is necessary to fit a set of wheel speed sensors – one per wheel.

The exact method used to locate and trigger the wheel speed sensors is absolutely critical to the correct operation of the Traction Control System. There are a number of different ways to construct the pick-ups, the easiest being the bolt detection method.

Please note that if your car is fitted with active ABS - and most cars from year 2000 onwards are - you will probably need a slightly modified Traction Control unit. For further advice please contact us.

The Traction Control system needs a minimum of four pulses per revolution, with a maximum of eighty.

There can be a different number of pulses from front to rear, but not between left and right across the same axle. E. g. 34 teeth at the front and 4 teeth at the rear is fine, 34 left front and 4 right front will not work.

Add-ons

Add-On Options/ Replacement Components

Digital Adjuster

Featuring a backlit LCD screen and simple rotary selector button and billet aluminium faceplate, the Digital Adjuster controls slip levels but can also be used as a setup and diagnostic tool, and features many display and configuration options.

Slip levels are adjustable in 1% increments from 0% up to 25%, and launch control comes as standard. Cut level thresholds, rev limits, wheel sizes and RPM operating levels can all be altered in real-time. The display option will represent, in a graph or text format, wheel speeds, RPM, and cut levels. In addition an injector cut feature allows diagnostics to be carried out without the use of a laptop computer.

The adjuster can be added to an existing Traction Control setup as an upgrade – please contact us with the serial number of your TC unit to check compatibility.

Standard Analogue Adjuster

The Standard Traction Control system has six degrees of operation, which equate to degree of oversteer in RWD application and degree of understeer in a FWD application. The six levels are 0% wheel slippage (Wet conditions), 5% (Dry), 10%, 15%, 20% and off.

Setting a RWD vehicle to 5% in the dry will deter the rear end losing traction and a tail slide occurring. 5% in a FWD car will deter excessive understeer.

If the weather conditions deteriorate whilst the car is in use the system can be adjusted whilst in motion down to the wet setting and 0% wheel slippage, making the car much safer to drive in adverse conditions.

Launch Control

Launch control is a function within the Traction Control system designed to automate standing starts to maximise the initial acceleration. It is activated by pressing a button on the Traction Adjuster when the car is stationary.

This will bring in a secondary rev limit (for example 4000 rpm). The throttle can be fully depressed without over-revving the engine. The car is put into gear, the throttle floored, and then the clutch is engaged, whilst the launch control system controls the wheelspin and revs for the perfect start.

On a turbo charged car, if the launch control is active, and full throttle is given for two to three seconds, the boost pressure will build up before the clutch is released, resulting in stunning off-the-line performance.

The launch control rev limit can be programmed via a laptop computer or via the Traction Adjuster.

Full Throttle Shift

The full throttle gearshift system is activated by a switch fitted to the clutch pedal, either a hydraulic switch or a mechanical switch. Once the clutch is depressed, the system automatically drops the engine revs down by using a momentary rev-limit, allowing the next gear to be selected without lifting off the throttle. Because the throttle is always fully depressed, the engine is instantly back on full power, and on a turbo charged car the turbo is still producing boost. Tests have shown up to 0.1 seconds can be gained per gear change.

Full throttle shift is a firmware upgrade available either at time of purchase or subsequent to fitting.

Data Logging

The Data Logging option allows the unit to permanently record the wheel speed, engine revs and traction control activity.

Six cylinder systems (product codes commencing RLTC6) can log data only with the use of a connected laptop pc running the Traction Control software. Eight cylinder systems (product codes commencing RLTC8) contain a RAM chip which allow for data to be logged onboard, for later download to the software.

In the graph you can see a data logging screen shot - the pink indicates engine cuts during a traction event.